Saturday, November 21, 2015

Teamsters

America's Strongest Union

Con-way Freight, Inc. violated the rights of workers who were trying to form their union with the Teamsters and must re-hire two workers it unlawfully fired during the organizing campaign, among other remedies, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ruled.

“By instructing employees not to wear union insignia, threatening employees for supporting the Union, filing criminal charges against an employee, suspending employees, and terminating employees because they supported the Union, the Respondent has engaged in unfair labor practices…,” Administrative Judge Eleanor Laws wrote in her decision.

The workers at Con-way’s Los Angeles terminal were trying to join Local 63. The company must cease its illegal activities, reinstate the two fired workers and pay them back wages and benefits, and take other steps.

Thursday, November 19, 2015

As Amazon announced a plan to hire 100,000 temps to handle the holiday rush, the ugly truth about the horrid conditions of those who work in the company’s supply chain are being revealed. Recently, warehouse worker Jeff Lockhart Jr., a married father of three, died working at an Amazon fulfillment center in Chester, Virginia. But it isn’t just in Amazon’s warehouses that workers are suffering. Consider the story of Julio Garcia, who hauls imports for Amazon off the docks at our nation’s largest seaport – the Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach.

Day in and day out, Julio Garcia gets in the company’s truck, drives to the port, and transports the electronics, clothes, and toys that Americans buy online every day from Amazon,com . Julio Garcia consistently works 50-60 hour weeks as a professional truck driver, yet his family was denied a home loan by the bank because they deemed his income “unstable.”

How could this be? Julio Garcia drives full-time for one of Amazon’s contractors, a giant company called XPO Logistics that is valued at more than $2.5 Billion. XPO, like thousands of similar American corporations, engages in an employment scheme that leaves his family unable to show a “stable” income despite “stable” work by treating its workers as employees but paying them as “independent contractors.” This scheme not only allows them to avoid payroll taxes, but also lets the company deduct their business expenses from drivers’ paychecks. They charge the drivers to drive the company truck, charge him to register, insure, fuel, and maintain their truck, and they even charge drives to park the company trucks at the company yard! “There are weeks that they charge me so much that I make less than the minimum wage – and some weeks I owe the company for the privilege of working for them,” said Julio Garcia.

This is wage theft and it is illegal, so Julio Garcia is one of more than 700 professional truck drivers in California who have filed a claim with the state Labor Commissioner. This week, he and his coworkers delivered a petition with a list of their demands. It’s fallen on deaf ears, so XPO drivers are again on strike – their 8thstrike in the last two years.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Monday,nov. 9, in the City of Opportunity, our courageous brothers and sisters have taken a step toward a brighter future by striking for the right to vote for Teamster representation. The decision to strike follows the successful Stockton campaign as well as other triumphant campaigns across the nation. The journey to this point has been a long one. Over the years, we have faced the deceptive anti-union tactics of FedEx Freight including harassment, wrongful termination and the blatant spread of misinformation. But despite their best efforts, we have stood strong in our fight to bring the Teamsters to FedEx because we know that a union contract is our only opportunity for a better future. The choice to strike is a difficult one, but nothing worth having has ever been easy. Today and for however long it may take, we stand with our brothers and sisters in Gardena. Stay strong and fight on!-The Change FedEx to Win Team

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